COURSE CURRICULUM

This Sport and Exercise Psychology degree combines psychology with sport science in a very applied, performance-focused way, rather than being purely theoretical psychology. At the foundation level, you study core psychological sciences such as social and cognitive psychology (how people think, learn, make decisions, and behave in groups), biological and developmental psychology (how the body and brain develop and influence behaviour), and research methods (how to design studies, analyse data, and evaluate evidence). Alongside this, you are introduced early to sport-specific psychology through modules like Principles of Sport and Exercise Psychology, which explores motivation, confidence, anxiety, and performance under pressure, plus Coaching and Skill Acquisition, which focuses on how athletes learn physical and tactical skills, and Introduction to Sport Management, which looks at how sport organisations and events are run. As the degree progresses, you can specialise through optional modules such as sport psychology and behaviour change, strength and conditioning, nutrition and metabolism, physical activity and health, and applied sport business management, allowing you to shape the course toward either performance coaching, athlete support, fitness and health promotion, or sport industry roles. More advanced modules like Applied Strength and Conditioning or Advanced Sports Coaching are highly practical, involving real training design, performance monitoring, and working with different populations, while psychology options such as applied human performance or clinical applications of psychology let you connect mental processes to real-world performance and wellbeing. A key feature of the course is its applied nature: you are not just learning theories about behaviour or exercise, but constantly linking them to real sporting environments such as teams, athletes, fitness settings, and health programmes. This prepares you for careers in sport psychology support, coaching, personal training, performance analysis, sport development, or further postgraduate study in sport and exercise psychology or related health sciences, while also giving you broader transferable skills in communication, research, leadership, and behaviour change.